The WA Council of Social Services (WACOSS) believes low-income earners are being asked to do most of the heavy lifting of the budget, while those on higher incomes escape relatively lightly.

"At the same time as making it more difficult for people from a financial perspective, we're also eroding the social security and safety net that is so important to the wellbeing of our community," WACOSS CEO Irina Cattalini told ABC News Online.

"While there is a budget challenge that needs to be resolved, we've got to be targeting spending where it's needed most.

"We need to be securing a sustainable revenue base and we need to be introducing greater fairness into the tax system."

In tightening the criteria for the disability pension, imposing a $7 GP co-payment and freezing welfare eligibility thresholds, the Federal Government was instead targeting the poor instead of the better off, Ms Cattalini said.

"What we needed to see was investment in child and family wellbeing, in health and social services," she said.

"We wanted to see a focus on education and skills that support people to work, and we wanted to see subsidies and tax concessions being reviewed so they were targeted to those people most in need, so that people who had the most capacity were doing most of the lifting.

"Instead what we've seen seeing is cuts to wellbeing, cuts to social services and cuts to income support benefits, which are going to have a direct and damaging impact on people who are living on low incomes and people who are vulnerable."

Ms Cattalini said young people were also being asked to bear a disproportionate amount of financial pain with the raising of the Newstart eligibility age to 25 and making those under 30 wait six months for Newstart benefits.

"Our young people are being treated very differently to our older people in this budget - that's a divisive approach," she said.

Budget sets us 'back on a sustainable fiscal footing'

However, the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) is broadly supportive of the budget.

"Overall this budget represents an important first start for the new Abbott Government in repairing the budget and setting us back on a sustainable fiscal footing," CCI WA chief economist John Nicolaou said.

He welcomed cuts to the public service, the merger of some government agencies and the abolition of others, as well as measures to increase workforce participation and improve productivity through a focus on infrastructure and a reduction in red tape.

"They're all important measures to control the rampant growth in spending that's been a feature of the federal government in recent years, and balanced against that is some measures in the way of tax increases that are going to be borne by the wider community," Mr Nicolaou said.

"These are measures that will ultimately expand the size of the economy through capacity building and ultimately the capacity for the federal government to raise more income and cut taxes over the longer term."

But Mr Nicolaou was less welcoming of the indexation of the fuel excise and the imposition of a deficit levy for those on incomes of $180,000 and above.

"These are all measures that I think on reflection, business and the broader community need to be concerned about because they've been instituted without a broader consultation," he said.

"That's one worrying concern in amongst a federal budget that sets the government back on a surer fiscal footing."

He was also concerned about cuts to industry assistance programs.

"Business will be concerned by cuts to certain programs which we believe were delivering a net economic benefit to the nation as a whole," he said.

"But overall the government needs to look at a range of ways which it can repair the budget and business is part of that solution in terms of some of the industry support measures that have been taken away."